Thursday, Sept. 8, 2005 Hi there. As this is the peak of my weekly writing cycle [and I even appear to be on schedule], I'm going to save my words for tomorrow's Planet Waves Essay. The weekly Q & A column should post shortly, in which I go over three of the charts involved in the Katrina situation. The revelations are startling, and informative. We are at a genuine, first class moment of history. Let's see what we do with it. Received this from Houston earlier in the week. Someone has been writing to me who said they lost their ephemeris in the flood. I can't find your email! Please get in touch again! Bon courage,     e Hi Eric,   I’ve been a native Houstonian all my life and I’m proud of the citizens of our city. People of all races, faiths and income levels have come together to help the victims in our city. You can feel the outpouring of compassion and love. The city is buzzing with relief efforts. I must say that the national reporters got it wrong Friday night. When the fire marshal said the dome was filled and the buses would have to be turned away – they weren’t, the mayor stepped in and said the evacuees had been through enough and that we were letting them in. That’s how government’s supposed to work. Below I’ve included an eye witness account of how things were going in the Astrodome over the first part of the weekend. The organization has greatly improved since then.   It wasn’t just the levees that broke in New Orleans, the damn of emotional outrage that has been smoldering since the presidential election also gave way. Aside from volunteering, I have spent many hours emailing – the White House, the Congress, FEMA to express my feelings about watching the elderly and babies bake in the sun without food or water. I have never felt so disgusted, sadden and hopeless as I did watching the coverage last week. We cannot allow how we felt to be forgotten or swept aside by some political side stepping. I also sent emails to the media praising them for finally finding the balls to confront the politicians. I ask that EVERYONE do the same. I know they count emails and it’s about time we all spoke up in a unified voice. I must say emails from my right-wing supposedly “Christian” relatives have been very disheartening. Blaming the liberals, don’t criticize the president, and it’s okay to let those people die because they were just collecting welfare. They are truly on another planet and I pray there are more of us than them.     FROM THE ASTRODOME [on our planet!] "Don't know where to begin, how to describe what we saw last night. It's not total chaos inside, but about 2 steps from it. The smell meets you before you walk through the doors. Besides a name tag, there was little volunteer organization. 'Help wherever you can' was the order. We tried bringing food down from the upper levels, but made it back with very little. Everywhere people would stop us asking for the food, water, a cot, a blanket, clothes, phone...everything. Mainly they were pleading for socks as many were barefoot. There was LITTLE clothing. We distributed what we had, but quickly ran out. People are walking around in clothing soaked in sewage. There is a medical triage station. Many people needed medical care. Bryan came across a refugee leaning against a rail, close to passing out. Bryan discovered he was a schizophrenic w/ a heart condition and hadn't had his medication in 5 days."   Thanks for all you do Eric…Karen